Coal-plant closures bring opportunities for solar

A new report documents that most U.S. utilities remain firm on plans to eliminate coal plants on the already-announced schedule, offering the prospect of enormous business opportunities for the solar industry — as well as a glimmer of hope for displaced coal miners

Despite President-elect Trump's promises, coal jobs are not coming back to the United States

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For the solar industry, news that coal plants representing 15,600 MW of capacity will come offline in the next 12 years is a well-timed business opportunity.

In a report released today by SNL Energy, a subsidiary S&P Global Market Intelligence, most U.S. utilities say they will still close coal-fired generation plants to comply with current Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations instead of waiting a promised dismantling of regulations under a President Donald J. Trump.

The report is sure to come as another crushing blow to coal-country voters, who in interview after interview during the recent election season that they believed Trump’s promise that he would bring coal jobs back to the United States — a promise he recently reiterated in his first address to the nation in a YouTube video.

But there is a glimmer of hope for the displaced coal miners — funds are currently in place to retrain them into the fastest-growing energy sector of the U.S. economy — solar.

The SNL analysis supports the idea, supported by a Harvard Business Review study, that coal miners could be retrained quickly to shift into the solar industry. Under President Obama’s Power+ Plan, U.S. coal regions would receive $1.1 billion in retraining and economic development funds — some of which could be used to ease miners’ transitions to the solar industry.

Utilities say the coal-fired plants — often built 60 years ago or more — can’t meet the current EPA emissions standards. Further, utilities don’t believe Trump could change the regulations fast enough to allow an alteration of the current schedule, saying changing the regulations isn’t as easy as the president-elect might think.

“It would take several months if not a year or more for the EPA to propose revisions, accept comment, review and respond to comments, and adopt the final language,” said Bonita Harris, a spokesperson for Dominion Virginia Power, in the report. “So a new administration couldn’t just change it easily.”

Update: This article was updated at 5:38 pm EST on 11/29/16 to correct the name of the companies running the training programs in West Virginia.

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Frank Andorka

Frank Andorka has been writing professionally for nearly 29 years and spent nearly 20 years in trade publications. He was the founding editor of Solar Power World and has covered all aspects of the solar industry from policy to panels and everything in between.

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